Spring?

It will be April soon. Like tomorrow. And I am entertaining a brisk day of 26. I am really glad I got my new coat a couple of weeks ago. I got a sweet deal on a North Face down coat with a 20% off coupon from REI and my dividends from my last year's purchases there. When you read "last year's purchases" know that it means when we were freezing in 30 below weather when we first arrived in Alaska and needed a fair amount of gear just to get to the grocery store.

So how good was the deal. Well I got a $200 coat for $85.

We had a lot of gear to buy.

But my old coat was 4 years old and was starting to fray at the seams. And since we wear our coats everywhere here I needed one that did not look so shabby.

And my new coat is truly the most comfortable thing I own. Except for my down slippers that I got from Restoration Hardware a couple of years ago with Courtney as Christmas presents to ourselves. They are pretty comfy too.

So is my big down comforter on my bed.

I am sensing a theme.

I need a new swimsuit too. Do you think they make them in down for Alaska? Maybe a puffy swimsuit would lessen my need for the gym. Maybe if they made puffy swimsuits everyone would assume I had one on if I was wearing a regular one and I wouldn't worry about that extra Olivia/living-in-a-hotel-for-7-weeks-weight.

I think I will pitch this to the Tyra Banks show.

In the mean time we had church cancelled for ash fall yesterday. I was in Anchorage Saturday afternoon when it started to fall and yes it does burn your eyes and throat and lungs. Not an "Oh my Gosh I am going to die," kind of burn. But a, "This is really annoying and may give me lung cancer if I breathe this for years," kind of burn.

Here are pictures from this years eruption. Remember, I am 100 miles away and have a great big body of water between it and me. We are in no danger of anything but ash fall. And there is no lave spewing from this one anyway.

This is lightning coming from all the particles creating friction at the mouth of the volcano.Photograph of lightning from Redoubt's 1:20 am March 28 eruption, courtesy of Bretwood Higman.

March 28 eruption, as captured by Dennis Anderson, from near Homer.

One of the eruptions on March 28

Photograph courtesy of Jacob Buller, taken from Kasilof Beach.

New description

Since the birth of ye old blog my description has been a line that is actually a title of a Cranberries CD: Everybody else is doing it so why can't we.

As I was unpacking a box of photo albums, I came across the last one I filled from last summer. I got it at a Hallmark store and I put a picture our family and CaMee's family in front of the Old Faithful Lodge. The caption under the window on the front cover says: "Who wouldn't want to be us."

We took that day trip on the way home from the farm and talked Mom and Cam into coming with us. We were also taking a Mastiff puppy for CaMee to be sent to its new home in North Carolina. I have 3 kids. CaMee has 6. We had Champ and the new puppy. Mom was buying all her grandkids one souvenir from Yellowstone for the summer. We had to get to Old Faithful since we hadn't been since Olivia was a baby. It was chaos. It is always chaos. Anyone who knows us knows we go and do and play hard.

And we have awesome pictures!

So the new description of ye old blog is "who wouldn't want to be us."

And frankly, I can't think of anybody else I would rather us be!

Casualty

Well the first victim was had at The Bird Cafe. It took Little Kitty all of 30 seconds to go out in the balmy 37 degree weather and bring this back to the back door. The boys watched the whole thing and laughed hysterically. Poor thing never saw it coming.

And I found a really awesome girl to cut my hair (Kim at The Beauty Room for any of you in Anchorage). It was a bit pricey, but then again everything is in Alaska. Here is a really awful picture of me after a dinner at McDonalds. I swear I look cute in mirrors! It is really short in the back. In fact on the way home after my haircut, I ran my hand through the back and felt a little violated...it was short!!

I am still having difficulties with Photobucket and Iditarod pictures. Here are a few pictures for now.

The plane from Anchorage to Unakleet

At Unakleet the piles of food for the dogs and mushers are frozen and separated alphabetically by checkpoint.

This is what is taking JaDee and all the food to Kaltag

Everyone takes a 4 wheeler of a snowmobile to the store, as in this is the only one.

JaDee in front of the Bering Sea. With a scope you can see Russia from Unakleet. See Sarah was right...some Alaskans do have Russia in their backyards!

Yes, that is a boat buried next to that house!

Off to Kaltag!

And it was cold!!!!

A dog on his way out with the frost from his sleep on him!

Musher putting on his dog's booties.

The booties protect their feet in this cold temperature. It was funny when the dogs get to a pile of straw the lead dog pulls to the front pile, and stops. Then all the other dogs are stopped in row next to their pile. The first thing they do is bend over and rip their own booties off! Each dog can pretty much take his own off but it takes the musher at least 30-40 minutes to re-bootie his dogs. They get a new pair at every stop.

Rows of teams in after a long 10-12 hour pull in -20 temps with a 40 mph head wind.

During a race each dog eats 10,000 calories a day!! Each check point is an average 8 hours apart so the musher carries enough food to feed his dogs every 90 minutes. They have this alcohol fuel supply called Heet that they burn to boil the frozen blocks of food for the dogs in about 30 seconds. In -20 it cools pretty fast so that they can eat it.

Some mushers stayed in Kaltag because they had a community building to sleep in. One stayed for 10 minutes, got a bale of straw, picked up his food and decided to camp out up the trail a ways. He got ahead of the bad wind and temperatures and ended up in 2nd place!

One lady-musher had a dog riding in her sled when they got to Kaltag. He was just pooped. Not only was there wind there were 8 foot drifts across the trail that the dogs had to fight through. One team refused to follow the mushers commands and weaved in and out around the drifts and managed to keep in line with the trail markers. (In 40 mph wind a trail does not stay broken for long so the stakes that mark the path are vital to see). One musher did get lost for hours and hours. He and his team went home and did not finish.

All mushers start with 16 dogs. They cannot swap dogs or replace dogs, but they can leave a dog at a check point to be flown back to Anchorage. Mushers try to avoid this because that means for a bad race experience for the dog and it is hard to "train" that kind of a trauma out of a "dropped" dog. The dogs live, eat and breath with their team and musher 24-7 so to be left behind with strangers and strange dogs is very traumatic. Kaltag was one of the checkpoints with 4 vets on hand that gave each dog a thorough once over.


This little guy was so wore out he got to stay inside after being dropped.
The rules specifically forbid dogs from going inside unless they are dropped. JaDee said this was even the only dropped dog that came inside. Dog teams are NEVER inside. It makes them nervous, but he was so sick he didn't care. He had round the clock care and did just great by the time he flew to Anchorage.


One group of mushers that came in on the worst night really worked together and helped each other get to Kaltag. They took turns breaking trail for each other, made sure no one got lost, kept each other's spirits up and remained within shouting distance of each other the whole time. JaDee said they came in laughing and having a great time. In fact, instead of crashing in the mushers quarters, they were up still having a great time long after the dogs were bedded down.



The sleds of the teams that worked together that long cold night

Another musher was so beat by taking that stretch by himself he almost dropped out. His team was ready to go, but the musher's morale was effecting them too. Then JaDee told him, "You know, your dogs look great!" The musher looked at his team and replied, "Yeah, they do don't they!" He went to each dog and patted them with glove enclosed hands, said some encouraging words to them. After visiting with each dog, he had each of his team wagging their tale and ready to go.

This is the team that almost dropped out, but here they are headed out of Kaltag.

Question of the day

I normally send out a lot of Christmas cards. And why am I worried about this in March? Well because we were moving across a Continent I allowed myself not to stress about the 125 cards, pictures and letters I normally send out in lieu of "We've Moved" cards to come this spring. I ordered 150 and they are so cute! But now who do I send them too? We know a lot of people after living in a small town for almost 9 years. But does everyone need one? What is the etiquette to sending a card to one neighbor and not to the other 6 old ladies in the same cul de sac so that they won't get their feelings hurt? Do I send one just to the good buddies and forgo the casual neighbors?

I counted up my list and I am at about 50 that I could send cards to. None of these people were ever on the original 125 Christmas card recipients so if I send them a card now am I committed to sending the Yuletide Greeting to them forever more after this too? I love keeping in touch, but gosh there are a lot of stamps going towards this process. Can't everyone just get with the program and read my blog or get on Facebook (for those of you who are on here: do know that you are all the cool ones who I love best).

What should I do!??


ps I am trying to get JaDee's pictures on Photobucket..bear with me he took alot!

I am a Daughter of God

and so are you.

THE BIG 3-7

HaPPy bIRtHdaY jAdeE!!

May your day be filled with awesome presents, lemon meringue pie and Bar B Q!

A random bit of life

The Iditarod pictures are coming. Our computer only has an SD card input but the camera he used is one from work and uses some long skinny card. Our photo printer with multiple card reader options is still in a box. The pics are cool. JaDee is still floating on the wonderful time he had.

My daughter has remained mostly dressed most of the time. It is sooooooo cold here! We have awaken up to single digits every day this week. So it is still snow pants, coats, hats, gloves, etc. to get to the bus stop.

And speaking of clothes. I had some really stinky gym clothes the other day. I got home from the gym dropped them into a pile outside my bathroom door and showered. After I got out I found my cat rolling in my sweaty, rank gym shirt. Gross kitty! I tried to take it from her and she totally clawed it away from me. No way was I giving up my stinky shirt! I won and promptly deposited it into the washer. What was she thinking?

And remember this guy?
Well he is in fact a Jay. His name is Steller's Jay. He is 11" long and only found in Alaska. I have to say I was hoping for a grander name. Like Alaska's Azure Arrowtip Falcon or Fancy Big Blue Bird. Nope. Steller's Jay it is.



And finally a shout out to my boys in the 'Cuse! Alas I am not participating in a March Madness poll this year (the family runs one for bragging rights). I have enough madness at at the moment and no TV to watch the games on so I will be missing all the action. But as usual, I am running around in my huge SU sweatshirt in support of my team! GO ORANGE!!!

Oh yeah, BYU is in the tournament too, but seriously, do they ever stand a chance at basketball? I'll pray for them.

I am a little tempted to get like Dish Network for the games and for the BYU channel to watch General Conference coming up in April, but when Ethan started begging for it yesterday I knew I had to stand firm. The boys are doing great with out a steady stream of television and frankly so am I.

Besides, I would have no time to blog if all I did was watch TV!

Welcome Home Checker JaDee

one more day

JaDee is staying one more day. Here is his e-mail from this morning. His sister EmRee is wanting him to put together a fireside for the youth of Lovell WY when we go there in June. Since our brother in law, Travis is the Young Men's President We think that can be arranged.

See how dangerous it is to be away, Honey! Your sister and wife are conspiring together against you.

But I guess that is because we are so darn proud of you!

How are you and the kids really doing? Let me know. I am not really
worried about work. Dale is out until later this week I think Thursday.
Anyway he was way excited. If the weather is bad they may not fly us out
anyway. Let me know how you are really doing. You can give me a call in
the morning if you would like to talk about it.

Tucker is coming to Anchorage for some tests on the 7th of April I suppose. Anyway I am going to invite him to dinner or something. Do not even know if it is a possibility, but I need to invite. Can I just tell you that it has been
years since I have dealt with a touching culture.

All and all I think I am doing OK( personal space and all) Well I love you and will write later.

Love


JaDee
Kaltag - 2009 Iditarod
Checkpoint Communications

Kaltag Comms - Fat, Dumb & Happy!

And here is tonight's update....

Well it was a good choice to stay another day. The wind is blowing with gusts above 40 mph. Sustained above 20MPH. We have a bunch of Dogs going to come in tonight between 10pm and 2am. they have to come into the wind for the 70 miles. Any way things are good. We just had a plane turn around and not land. I would not get on a small plane today. We are all being safe and a large plane may come and get all of the dogs and me tomorrow. No need to stay longer as there will not be any more mushers coming in for a while. After today there are only 13 left to come through and way spread out. Anyway love you and will write again when I get a chance.


JaDee
Kaltag - 2009 Iditarod
Checkpoint Communications
Kaltag Comms - Just a Nice Blustery Spring Day!

PS EmRee asked if I was spellchecking his e-mails....that would be affirmative. Anyone who knows JaDee knows he does not spell well, at all.

Yay Honey!!!

It was a busy day on the trail. I finally got an e-mail form him. It is -20 up in Kaltag!!

Hi dear,
Well it was about 11:00PM last night and "Tucker" the Village elder
in charge of Checking in the Mushers took the clip board that he was holding
and handed it to me and said now you are the checker. Yea I have been doing
my job and checking in and out every musher here. So I have the signatures
of all of the top mushers.

About noon the wind wiped up to 20 mph. The day
started at -20 and warmed up to a lot worse. I have done everything from
driving a sled to walking a team out to making sure one waited his full 8
hours. I have gotten tons of pictures but it is so cold that the battery
only lasts a few hours. But the professional cameras batteries were dying
also.

There have been a lot of very nice people and some that are jest
trying to get out. My picture is on the iditarod.com pictures for today. ( go about halfway down the thumbnails in the left hand column).
We worked with 5 dropped dogs today. Some dogs look really well and others
are tired. I now believe that it is all the dogs and not the drivers.

I cooked Salmon last night. I could not remember the recipe so I made one up
and every body seem to like it. One guy said complements and I am hard to
please. They are all sad that I am leaving tomorrow, but I tell them that I
have to pay rent.

It has been cool to talk to all of the vets. That is the
one thing I never realized is how many vets volunteer.

Well I love you and I
am a little tired. My shift is over at Midnight and the rest of the mushers
for the night will be in by then. I will work until my plane takes me out
of hear. Every body is amazed that you helped me get here and having only
been here since December. Well I love you. I might get another chance to
write you but I do not know.

Love


JaDee
Kaltag - 2009 Iditarod

My arch nemesis

I gained 8 pounds last year. This was on top of the 9 I had left over from having Olivia. It was the first time I ever gained weight unrelated to having a baby. I was just plain getting fat.

But I lost the 8 pounds by running, weight training, sort of counting WW points nad substituting whole grains for white pasta and bread, and stocked the fridge with fruits and veggies.

Then we moved.

For 7 weeks we ate out.

And life was so topsy turvy that exercising was sporadic at best.

As careful as I was when I went out I gained the 8 pounds back. I guess with a substandard kitchen in astrange city that is not known for its abundance of produce, I am lucky it is not more.

Well the last 3 weeks I have been a gym rat, gotten back on track with better eating habits and lo and behold, I lost 3 pounds! Hurray for me!

Enter Spring Break and a hubby out of town. It has lead for a rather relaxed atmosphere (read day two of jammies) and so for Saturday night entertainment I made caramel popcorn for the kids and I to watch Planet Earth with.

Now the recipe I use is Red headed sister CaMee's, who my kids always beg to cook more like because she is Queen of Tasty desserts (in all fairness to me CaMEe's kids wish she cooked like me because I am Queen of Tasty pasta). And this recipe makes a lot. But 2 bags of popcorn only take 4 cups (only 4 cups Nicole, you are delusional. Anything that takes a half a pound of butter to make means there is nothing ONLY about 4 cups of it. And the fact you and your 3 small fry polished off said 2 bags of popcorn and with ONLY 4 cups of caramel means there is definitely nothing ONLY about it).

So today that means there was a lot of left over caramel in the pot. And I have been passing it by all day. And I just happen to be casually scooping a spoonful like this all day too. I would put it on bread, but really, why bother!

As my gift to all of you I am including this decadent and sinfully easy recipe below. Because misery loves company.

1 / 2 pound butter

1 cup corn syrup

2 ½ cups brown sugar

Cook above to soft ball (about 240 on a thermometer)

Turn off heat and add one can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla (I leave the vanilla out most of the time because I forget)

It's not all about JaDee

It is my blog for cryin' out loud. I should have something to say on it, no matter where the action is.

The current crisis of the day is getting Olivia to wear clothes. She is currently clad in panties with long strips of toilet paper clutched in each hand running around the house calling the dog to follow. He obliges and so the click click click of his newly clipped nails (a la me...That was fun wrestling an 80 lb lab into submission while I try not to cut too short.) is not the scrape scrape scrape it was a few days ago.

Olivia is very much enthralled with her power that she has over Champ. He listens to her. Lets her clip his leash to his collar and even lets her parade him around on it. He heels at her command, follows her through tunnels of empty boxes and catches everything she throws at him. Even her dinner.

And most of the time she is naked. Or some vital part of clothing is missing. One day she bent over and her little bare bottom poked out from her dress. She was on the back deck waiting for Champ to finish his business (She is very good at letting him out and calling him back in).

"Olivia! Get in here and get some panties on!"

"But Mom, I don't need panties. My dress covers my bagina."

"I don't care! Get in here now!"

And in her exasperated, I have no more patience for Mom voice she says, "SooorrrrrY!" with a little high pitch in her voice for emphasis.

I get the panties on but lost the battle over a coat since she did inform me she had her boots on (and she did. She does where her boots outside if nothing else. Once I caught her in the garage with ONLY boots on).

Besides, it was 37 degrees outside. Summer is just around the corner!

Check out this newcomer to The Bird Cafe. I better get that bird book...I have no idea what it is, except it was huge! Like a foot long and soooooo blue!

Iditarod at Kaltag day 2

I got 3 e-mails from JaDee this morning. He made it to Kaltag and is gearing up for the first mushers to arrive tonight!

Nicole,
We are here in Kaltag safe and sound. We have a ton of food and are very warm. We have a phone number so you can call me. I can not call out long distance. Anyway we are talking to the locals and Scott is cooking dinner. Hamburger helper. I will write more later or in the morning. Love you and talk to you later. The #'s are below.
JaDee



Good morning

Well we aren't exactly roughing it. I had a bed to sleep in last night. It is still very dark outside. The people that I have met seem very friendly. This is the e-mail that I will use from now on because the Juno is slow and I forgot to log off and I do not know if you are able to use it if I am logged on. Any way I hope this finds you well. The first Mushers are almost to Eagle Island. That is about a 5 to 6 hour run from here. So I guess it depends on the amount of rest that they decide to take. I doubt much as there are only 3 tents there and they do not have a lot of heat. We have a nice heated community center for them to stay in. Scott is nice and we have gotten along pretty well. Our last flight of food will make it in today if the weather is nice. The little plane was pretty fun to fly in. We saw the trail from above. We sat and chatted with Tucker and Peter until 10:30 last night. They are pretty funny. I will probably take a shower and get ready for the day. The Yukon river is pretty big. It should be a pretty fun and exciting day today. Well take care and tell the kids that I love them. Until later.

JaDee
Kaltag - 2009 Iditarod


Well I have a little more time. It looks like the first mushers will be here tonight and most of the day tomorrow. It should get pretty busy. You can e-mail me back at this address if you want to. It is pretty crazy out here. I am charging my camera battery right now so that I will be able to take a lot of pictures of the dogs and mushers. Anyway I hope you are having a good time with the kids and they are not driving you crazy. If we got a babysitter maybe you and I could do KALTAG next year together. It would be like camping to you. I am sure there will be a lot more people coming in latter on today and tomorrow. Well I am off to take more pictures.

Love you.

JaDee

JaDee on the trail day 1

As you know JaDee flew out on a little prop plane to his post on the Iditarod. They flew into the "larger" post of Unalakleet .and were going to change planes but weather kept them in Unalakleet last night. Here is the e-mail I got this morning from JaDee:

Well I slept on the basketball floor last night. It is an old domed Quonset hut that they converted into a gym. Everybody else stayed upstairs and I figured if I had the room take it while I had it. I was the only one down there. Carter and Ethan, one of the people that I have meet is a captain of a commercial salmon fishing boat. She is really nice. She has sold fish to the captain of one of the boats off of the Most Dangerous Catch. Kind of funny huh. Well I have a lot of pictures.

Well Nicole I have found Rustic AK. I should have brought you here first and then our house would appear as a modern marvel. Well we had pizza at the only restaurant in town. $36 for a large. All of the satellites point down. I can't wait until you go to Nome.

Any way I will sign off for now. I might fly out if the weather is good. There is a checkpoint that is ahead of us that is not set up yet. Eagle Island has 6' of snow and you sink once you get off of the plane. They have 3 tents and no food for the dogs or mushers yet. So I may be here another day until they get that one set up. Olivia I got to fly in a little airplane I got a lot of good pictures out of the window.

Well I hope you are doing well. Love you all

And he's off!

We have had a fun spring break in spite of the lack of spring weather. Monday we had dinner with friends. Suzie and Bruce have 3 married kids in Eagle River and invited us to join them all for dinner with their kids and grandkids. It was great to have a bunch of kids running around with light sabers and we had a great Family Home Evening lesson with them.

Yesterday we went ice skating and sledding with Suzie's daughter in law, Julie, and her 3 kids. She has 2 boys and girl that match up with my kids exactly. They each had a friend and played sharks and minnows down the sledding hill. It involved a lot of tackling each other and was a ton of fun. Later we sent Carter and his new friend to their house while Ethan and his new friend cam to our house. They laughed themselves silly and had a great time.

Last night we had our friends the Mowers over. They have 4 kids Ethan's age and younger. They just got back from Hawaii and we had to hear all about their trip. We played a rousing game of Snorta (click the link for the last time I mentioned Snorta on the ole blog...its way at the end) with everybody and it was down to Catherine and her husband Matt. We laughed as the spousal competition really came forth as they quacked and oinked their way to the bitter end!

And today JaDee flew out to Katltag. He is most excited. He will only be able to e-mail me until Monday. Hopefully all will go well. He took the camera and we will have them up as soon as he gets back, maybe he will even be a guest poster on the ole blog!

I am off with the kids to the Imaginarium tomorrow. It is a science museum here in Anchorage with hands on stuff for the kids. We have unpacked about 8 big boxes of toys and found homes for most of them. My floor is mopped for the week and we are relatively on top of the laundry!

Life is good.

Are you on here?

OK this is from my Crazy in Gilbert friend. I laughed like you would not believe. And after clipping the dogs way too long fingernails and mopping the kitchen floor I needed something good today!

The blog is Sexy People. Here are some of my favorites!

Only a week before Thanksgiving and Junior didn't know that this would be their last picture together.

Now make sure you take your protractor out of your pocket first, son. You don't want hurt anything important with these shenanigans.

Oh yeah, baby.

I have nothing. This picture is just spooky.

Now for my favorite. One that Grandma hung in the parlor and his girlfriend kept under her pillow.

Iditarod 101

We got to see the start of the "Last Great Race." Turns out it is a ceremonial start where the mushers get to carry their family or other people from Anchorage to Eagle River. Then the real start is today up in Willow. JaDee went down early in the morning to get assigned to his team as a dog handler. A dog handler holds the dogs in the harness when they are hooked up to the sled, but still waiting to take off. They run along side the dogs, holding the harness to the start line. JaDee was with team 14 of 69.


The musher's name was Gary. He lives in the middle of nowhere here in AK. He had 18 dogs with him that will run the Iditarod at various legs. He has, however 50 dogs total at home. 50 dogs! That is a lot of food and a lot of poop! Many of the mushers are from Alaska but there were teams from Nebraska and Washington that I saw as well.


One musher only runs white dogs. His team is all white. He is apparently a famous musher and JaDee saw him and his team, but since we are new fans of the sport he was not aware of the enormity of the sighting. There were alot of big name mushers but you would never guess it. Most of the truck used to haul the teams are old pickups with homemade plywood kennels built onto the bed. The only "professional" looking equipment was the team that the National Guard ran. They were all color coordinated Red White and Blue trucks and kennels. Turns out a retired musher named Mackey trains the dogs for them. Mackey's family goes back 3 generations of mushers who have won the Iditarod. So while we are proud of country's representation out there on the trail, they are the spoiled ones.


Sled dogs are NOT huskies!!! They are this mongrel mix of husky, German shepherd, and a bunch of other things that keep them small and quick with floppy ears.


Anyway, check out the pictures and wish JaDee good luck in Kaltag!


The starting line at 4th and D St

As they go rushing by us

A musher prepares his sled



The dogs are anxious to get going. that is why they need a handler. Once they are hooked to the sled they just want to run. And the barking!! There were 69 teams. Each team has an average of 10 dogs hooked up at a time. That is 700 dogs!! But, they only bark when they are hooked up. In their kennels they are quiet and when they start to pull they are quiet. Pretty amazing.




Olivia met the "Rondy" Princesses. The Iditarod has roots with the fur rendezvous that was also held at this time. Rondy Festival has been going on all week, much like Peach Days, but in the winter!

After the last team we went out on 4th St at the start.

The snow has to be trucked on to 4th street until they can get out to open snow. That really won't be until they pass Eagle River 8 miles away. They will follow the groomed trails for skiers until then.

Clean up. Notice the fur sign. 4th St is home of the furriers. There are fur shops up and down 4th. And not a PETA protester in sight.

Here is the National Guard kennel and their team we got to see hook up. No one else looked this nice. That kennel is 2 "stories" tall and is double sided. Meaning the dogs are rear to rear with another dog on the other side of the wall. This kennel holds 20 dogs, ten on each side. Most of the teams have kennels designed just like this, but made out of plywood in the shop back home.

The guard even had matching jackets. We also saw Eukanuba and another sponsored team that had matching jackets for this start too.

JaDee the dog handler. That was his backstage pass!

Close up of dogs

A handler hooking up a dog. After he was hooked she did not let go of the rope and another person helped hook the next dog. It took as many as 10 people to hook up and handle a team depending on how the musher wanted his dogs handled.

There is the 2 story National guard kennel

And he is off!

Carter and Ethan has a team rushes by at the start